Green economy (1/24/2019)

It was somewhat encouraging reading Thomas Friedman’s editorial in the New York Times the other day entitled “A Green New Deal Revisited.” In it he mentions that there seems to be a group of new U.S. representatives who seem to take global warming and other environmental issues seriously. I hate to use the word crisis in particular since we were joking about starting a drinking game and having a shot of bourbon every time Trump mentioned the word crisis during his White House address the other day or when he talks about his famous border wall, but in reality our environment is in a state of crisis.

According to Friedmman, it seems that congress woman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others have actively started the ball rolling. Leave it to this young lady to have the guts to do so. Not that I want to sound like an old man who is set in his ways. Yes, I recently wrote an account about an old guy going into the woods with his dog. I just wanted to write something different, more story like. I wanted to change the narrative a bit while still being serious about the environment. I wanted to approach nature’s beauty and importance from a different angle; discover it and enjoy it. I wanted to write about the excitement and importance of being out there.

Let's go back to the “Green New Deal” as Friedman calls it. This one is really exciting. This group of legislators are understanding that we getting close to reaching a point of no return. It is now or never when it comes to environmental protection! So they are calling for the U.S. to completely transition away from fossil fuel in the next 12 years. How the heck would we do that, you may ask. Well, according to Friedman, in order to protect “Mother Nature”, ourselves and future generations, we will have the be nice to “Father Greed.” What does he mean with that? He proposes passing environmental regulations, fuel efficiency standards, green building codes and all those wonderful things. This would make it much more attractive for innovators to develop alternative (green) methods of doing business, of transportation, of living, etc, It would make it more cost efficient. For example, whenever you look into solar energy it is always compared to the cost of energy supplied to the home that is generated by fossil fuels by the energy companies.

In 2007/2008 Friedman published something like the four zeros. Zero-net energy buildings, or buildings that produce as much energy as they consume; zero-waste manufacturing; zero-carbon power grid; and zero-emission transportation.

This all seems very ambitious, and my first reaction is that this will the hit the economically underprivileged harder than those who are richer and well off. The poor will suffer either way, when we live greener and combat global warming or when we do nothing about it; under an increasing warmer world. But then, what will happen if we do nothing about the trajectory we are on?

Most ordinary folks, it seems, are aware of global warming and know it is an important issue. They know we need to do something about it. However, we are at the mercy of a few rich manufacturers; the few elite, rich capitalists who can buy off our politicians. It seem that they don’t give a damn what happens to the world’s climate in name of the almighty dollar, their profits; the stuff they can’t take with them to hell, when they die. But for right now, they can afford more powerful air conditioners, better insulated homes, and protect themselves from us when disaster strikes, or so they think.

Our world currently has somewhere around 7.6 billion people running around on it. In the next 10 years we are expected to add another billion to it. These billion folks also want to have somewhat of a comfortable life, air to breath, clean water, transportation and maybe a Western standard of living. All I can say is: “Good luck.” At least if we continue with what we are doing right now. Something has to give. We have to take care of our children and grandchildren.

Where do we start? Well, my next car is going to be a hybrid. I use as little chemical fertilizer in my yard as possible and no pesticides. I teach, blog, preach and talk about the environment. I try to live what I preach. Does it help? Who knows, only time will tell. But if we all contribute our small part it will, or at least it may! If we don’t, we can guarantee the we or our future generations will live to experience the consequences. For the rest we need to support those politicians that are actually fighting for the environments, against global warming. Those folks and politicians who have the foresight and vision and want a better world, instead of the status quo.

Library of Virginia in Richmond (4/16/2014)

An article in the newspaper got me steaming today.  It was about how conservative USA (read Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers) are trying to stop the use of alternative energy and selling back of home generated energy back to the power companies.  Honestly, I think the newspaper was trying to fill some space, since this appears to be old news.  A simple search for Koch and renewable energy or solar energy shows their opposition to it for at least the past two or three years.  Guess they don’t like the government subsidies and the fact that there are laws requiring energy companies to buy back the excess energy that is generated at home.  I’m really nor that sure why they are against renewable energy.  Is it affecting their income as share holders in energy firms?  Or is it a principle, in that, energy conservation has been championed by more liberal thinkers and democrats, so it must automatically be bad and opposed?  I am still confused why those people who want to protect our children from a future deficit, have no problem in saddling those same kids up with a warmer planet, more polluted air, energy shortages, rising energy costs and a higher cost of living. 

So I was still steaming during my lunchtime walk in the sun (it was a great day to harvest solar energy).  It was abnormally chilly today, but it actually felt invigorating.  Walking up the hill at the capitol I noticed a saying on the Library of Virginia: “Reason and free inquiry are the only free agents against errors, …”  This saying is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, and it rang so true this afternoon.  We hopefully will use reason and inquiry before accepting everything that we are told, be it from conservative or liberal pundits. 

In full disclosure; I am the proud owner of two solar arrays that I will be installing on my sailboat, partially as an experiment, but also to be more self sufficient and less dependent on an outlet to charge the batteries on my boat.